Early this year I realized that in order to research my Caldarelli family in Naples, I would have to hire a local Italian researcher because the Naples records are not available in the U.S. on microfilm like the Prata records are. I got very lucky and found Joe DeSimone, who was able to find the Naples records I needed. Joe was born and raised in New Jersey, but has lived most of his adult life here in Italy where he married and raised his children. One of his children, Giovanni, assists in his research and the other invaluable services he provides.
When I mentioned to Joe in an email that I was hoping to visit the Avellino area this year, he told me that he has an apartment that he rents. It was Joe’s apartment that we rented in Quadrelle. He also provides many other services – Giovanni picked us up at the airport and helped us get our rental car, took us to Prata for our first visit, and a week later drove us to the Amalfi Coast after we returned the rental car.
There is no way we could have done this type of trip without Joe’s help. Most importantly, I hired him to research whether or not I still had any family in Italy and he found our Ferrara cousins, the most warm and welcoming family we could have imagined.
If anyone out there needs to hire a genealogist in Italy, you cannot go wrong by contacting Joe through his website – www.italiangenealogypro.com.
